Joe Kowalski
Joseph "Joe" Kowalski AKA PogieJoe is the guy this entire Wiki revolves around! Childhood Joe was born in Oberlin, Ohio on March 19, 1995. His parents described him as a quick and early reader who wouldn't stop adjusting things. He attended St. Mary's Catholic School in Elyria from Kindergarden through Second Grade, was homeschooled from third through sixth, and finished his seventh through twefth grade years at St. Paul High School in Norwalk, Ohio. Interest in Video Joe started regularly creating videos of his own in 2005 by using stop-motion animation to bring to life 'The Littlest Elf', a throw-away character in the Series of Unfortunate Events books and film, although his first try at it was when he was seven years old. It was then that he created a short documentary video instead of a posterboard for a class in the second grade. Between 2005 and 2010 Kowalski created a large yet amateurish repertoire of work, expanding his skills. Among them are three half-an-hour videos meant to spoof network television stations complete with news, reality TV, commercials, and talk shows. Others fall into categories of science fiction and fantasy epics (although speaking as someone who has seen them, they are quite hard to watch sometimes). He also created more stop-motion shorts, several hand-drawn shorts in collaboration with his sister Becca, quite a few CGI short films, holiday specials, and more. YouTube In 2010 at the age of 15, Joe created a YouTube account, inspired especially by YouTuber Wheezywaiter. He named it "PogieJoe" after a childhood nickname from his parents and as a carryover of "PogieProductions" which is what he had as his logo name previously. His first upload was a video he had created for one of the aforementioned TV network spoofs entitled Shermy: The Boring Old Country Shop and was fully animated. The first YouTube exclusive PogieJoe videos were his three-part submission to "Life in a Day", a documentary film in collaboration with YouTube and directed by Kevin MacDonald. His videos, while mostly uninteresting, were supposed to be time capsules of sorts to help create the story of what life was like in 2010 for future generations. His submission actually survived the first round of cuts but was never featured in the final film, although supposedly the sound effects he submitted were. The first YouTube-exclusive PogieJoe narrative filmed was Childlike Jackknife which was shot in the building adjacent to his own. It was a black-and-white short that was supposed to be a youthful look at noir. Kowalski recalls this was particualrly difficult to edit on Windows XP due to his new 1080p camera and was grateful to have his family recieve a computer with Windows 7 installed in Christmas of that year. However, before that was released Joe did a quick short with his siblings and his sister's friends called Splash Revenge that techincally came out first and therefore was the'' real first PogieJoe narrative short. PogieJoe After uploading both old and new material sporadically, Kowalski vowed in the May of 2011 to begin creating a video once a week. He kept this promise with few exceptions until December of 2013 in which he explained that due to increased time constaints while working on bigger projects the videos would be slightly more sporadic again. Joe's first video to get any sort of significant view count was 'The Oreo Cookie Song!' , which was taken off one of his old videos. PogieJoe received a boost in followers when "NicePeter" of '''Epic Rap Battles of History' fame recommended and commented on his music video "Only You" A Love Song for Toothpicks" . YouTuber Brittani Lousie Tayler also responded positively on a video on his second channel, PogieJoe2, which was formed in 2011. Kowalski gained the majority of his followers in the time between mid-2011 and mid-2012 due to a more social and effective YouTube design that its current form. Individual articles containing information on individual PogieJoe videos can be found on this wiki. Famous guest stars included on PogieJoe included John Green, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Chef Gordon Ramsay, Jason Nicholas of New Channel 5, and Jason Urgo all with varrying degrees of participation through Kowalski's exploits. Each video covers a wide variety of genres, styles, and techniques. Kowalski claims he does this intentionally to make sure he never repeats himself and is always pushing himself out of his comfort zone. His videos are usually comedic, but not necessarily so. One of his most famous recent creations is John Green is Magic which was reblogged quite a bit on tumblr and was featured on hollywood.com. Even so, in terms of view count, his most famous video as of right now is The "Why Are You So Ugly?" Song followed closely by Spider Vs. Wasp Showdown, both created in 2011. Larger Projects Kowalski is currently one of the lead editors among other roles on The Outdoor Option, a family hunting show that airs on the Pursuit and Sportsman channels. He is also currently working on the first PogieJoe film feature to be released as the fourth anniversary special, a musical comedy called One Day. He is also an production assistant and extra on the upcoming horror films Colony 52 and You Will Go Darker, '''directed by Conrad Faraj as well as the upcoming drama '''A Midwest Winter by Fernando Lopez.. Kowalski is a backer of upcoming experimental film The 1 Second FIlm, and the comedy horror film''' Due Bro Party Massacre 3'. PogieJoe YouTube shorts are also broadcast under the moniker '''PogieJoeTV' Saturdays in the Oberlin area in half-hour blocks. The PogieJoe Roku app has been downloaded more than 7,400 times. Category:People Category:YouTube